This blog tracks a ten year epic of kick-starting a whole writing career, with spies and thrillers and now, vampires. I cover the creative process, stuff that blows up, history, philosophy, and theology. If you like any or all of the above, you'll like this one. We talk about comic books, movies, music, and writing. Usually, all at the same time.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Keith Thompson. Once a Spy .... if Jason Bourne had a son, and if Bourne had Alzheimers.... My review here. There's a sequel called .... wait for it ... Twice a Spy.

David Morrell: Yes, he created John Rambo in his novel “First Blood.” However, I would suggest that it is not his best. In The Spy Who Came For Christmas, a spy tries to keep a baby from the mercenaries he'd been undercover with. Wounded, he seeks refuge in a home while being chased; to keep the occupants calm as he prepares for war, he tells them a spy's version of the Christmas story. In “Creepers”, a group of urban explorers enter into an abandoned hotel, onto to discover that they're not alone. “Scavenger,” the sequel to Creepers, finds the survivors of the hotel incident trapped into a deadly game—a real life role playing game, set in a hostile wilderness filled with booby traps.

Vince Flynn-- He writes about a CIA assassin named Mitch Rapp, and the first one was about terrorists taking over the white house. This was before terrorists became popular (1999), and he does a wonderful critique of what went wrong during the 1990s in the intelligence world. In his first novel with Rapp, terrorists have taken over the Clinton White House, and he's sent in for recon. Now all he needs to do is not kill all of the terrorists himself.

One of the nice things about Vince Flynn is that he always has a domestic element to his novels. Domestic as in "do we have to kill the politicians before they get us all killed." Again, Flynn has had politicians as antagonists since the 1990s, so he's not some sort of Tea Party individual.

Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child: Would you like to see a scientific version of fighting monsters? Just start by reading Relic (for the love of all that's Holy, IGNORE THE MOVIE) and Reliquery, then let the games begin. Preston brings a unique knowledge of biology and anthropology to each of the books, and Child brings a great ingenuity with all things mechanical. So, for example, when the genetic mutation from the wilderness trashes the multi-million dollar security system, trapping a museum full of potential victims inside ... well, it gets fun.

If you want to read either individually-- just read Lincoln Child. Preston on is own is not Preston at his best. Lincoln Child has written Death Match (match.com meets serial killers), Utopia (Westworld meets Disney World), both of which are at the top of the list for recommendations for these two as individuals.

Matthew Reilly-- You can ignore this man's politics, mainly because, if he has any of his own, they're feeble minded. However, he has only three books in which politics plays a role. Usually, he does a good job of setting up eight-sided shootouts, and no one ever stops running. And I mean never.

Contest: A Doctor has to take out a violent criminal in his emergency room in the afternoon, and finds himself a contestant in an interstellar gladiatorial slug fest in the New York City Public Library. The winner gains prestige for his race. Losers don't go home.

Temple is a race for an element in the jungles of Latin America that makes uranium look like M&Ms. If you thought previous descriptions of A Pius Man have looked paranoid, you haven't seen anything yet.

Ice Station is just pure fun ... not to be mistaken for Ice Station Zebra ... a marine Recon unit led by Shane "Scarecrow" Scofield, visits a polar ice cap survey station, only to find everyone slaughtered. The British, the French, the Russians, everyone has a SpecOps team ready and waiting to kill anyone in the way between them and their prize.

Area 7 is the sequel to Ice Station. During a Presidential visit to an Area 51-facility, terrorists attack. And they take the facility. Who was part of the President's security detail? One Shane Scofield.

And Scarecrow ... the world's deadliest assassins have a list of people who must die. Each of these people is someone with the proven reflexes necessary to stop the world from being destroyed. Unfortunately for the assassins, Shane Scofield is on the list. is a nonstop running shootout. Each book involves at least a four to six sided shootout, so they don't have time to slow down.

James Rollins -- Sandstorm, Map of Bones, Black Order, The Judas Strain.... oh, to heck with it, just look for any book labeled a “Sigma Force Novel.” Imagine Special forces soldiers with PhD's in physics. Or, scientists with guns. Rollins was writing world spanning ancient mysteries and high-tech thrillers before anyone ever took note of Dan Brown. When this man writes cutting edge, he gives the footnotes, citing articles that are, in some cases, only available overseas.

He also has some one-shots like Subterranean, or Excavation, which is pretty much Indiana Jones, the next generation.

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